23 Charles
416 925-6176

Definitely not vegetarian friendly at all. Vegetarians beware! Located right at Charles near Bloor right beside 7 West and across from the Manulife Centre, this cosy dim-lit 10 table space has been serving Japanese food for many years, claims my friend

The menu is 2 pages, very simple. It’s divided into main dishes, okonomi yaki [Japanese egg pancake], side ordders, beverages, and desserts. Main dishes include teriyakis served with rice and stir fried vegetables. Items include beef, chicken, salmon, yakiniku, tofu, and seafood teriyaki. Also included is a yakisoba and seafood yakisoba dish. All dishes are made with chicken or fish stock so let them know WAY before hand that you’re vegetarian. Side orders include miso soup (not vegetarian), noodle soup, stir fried vegetables, rice, green salad, seafood salad, sunomono, and edamame.

The Okonomi Yaki, an egg pancake fried with vegetables with your choice of either beef, chicken, pork, bacon, vegetable, shrimp, squid, scallop, ($5.25-$5.85) or seafood deluxe ($9.95).

Unfortunately the vegetable okonomi yaki is made with fish stock so I was stuck ordering the tofu teriyaki ($6.05)but the teriyaki sauce is fish vbased so my dish was flavoured was soy sauce, how tasteless and salty.

Okonomi House also serves plum wine, saki, and a variety of Japanese and domestic beers ($4.40-$8.50). I’ve notived that many Japanese restaurants do not meet the needs of vegetarians. It seems all of their vegetable dishes include a lot of beansprouts but no real vegetables. For example, I ordered a side of stir fried vegetables ($2.95). In terms of vegetables, there were very few brocolli and carrot, but most of the vegetables were bean sprouts which are not that filling, mostly containing water and fibre. Daniel ordered the Salmon Teriyaki which came with Salmon marinated in a nice sauce. He loved it. It came with rice glass noodles, rice, and some vegetables. I think he was very happy with his meal. He also ordered a beer as well [The Japanese Sapporo $4.10]

Excellent prices, all under $10.00 and excellent, well informed service. Thank goodness the waiter told me about the fact that hardly anything was truly vegetarian.

Unfortunately, I do not think I’ll go back to Okonomi House since there are no dishes for me there and although service was great, they were not accomodating or flexible. Accepts credit card and Interac. Open late. Liquor license.